The Internet Protocol (“IP”) serves as the de-facto standard for forwarding data messages (“datagrams”) between network devices connected with the Internet. To that end, IP delivers datagrams across a series of network devices, such as routers and switches, in the form of one or more data packets. Current Internet devices typically forward packets one-by-one to adjacent network devices (“next hop” network devices) based essentially on the address of the destination device in the packet header. Among other benefits, this routing scheme enables network devices to forward different packets of a single datagram along different routes to reduce network congestion, or avoid malfunctioning network devices.
Some networks, such as wide area networks and local area networks, sometimes select next hop network devices based on network traffic/congestion. This selection process often is referred to in the art as “load balancing.”